10 Eunuchs
The Ten Eunuchs, otherwise known as the Ten Regular Attendants (十常侍), was a group of eunuchs who served as close advisors to the ruling Emperor in the imperial court of the Han Dynasty. Due to the excellent service they provided during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, their numbers increased to include a total of twelve members. Using the influence and trust they had garnered with Emperor Ling, they would directly implicate any political detractors to maintain their power and often escaped punishment for their crimes by using poor excuses or laying the blame on others. The Emperor established eight Colonels of the Western Garden in 188 in light of the recent Yellow Turbans upraising; he consulted with He Xun for his opinion on raising an army which cast doubts on the wisdom of the attendants and their integrity. Jian Shuo, who was just made Colonel of the First Army, had He Xun sent away and tried to do the same with He Jin. His scheme against was not accepted by the attendants and he was executed by He Jin once the ploy was revealed. Enraged at learning of the plot against him, He Jin sought allies against the eunuchs and eventually agreed to Yuan Shao's plan to have Dong Zhuo stage a false rebellion to pressure the Empress He to execute the attendants. Gathering troops for his cause, He Jin eventually confers with the Empress He to condemn the twelve; learning of the proposal to have them all executed, the eunuchs rallied dedicated followers. Forging an imperial order from Empress He, the attendants lured He Jin into an ambush toward their armed, hidden supporters and he was killed. He Jin's death quickly gathered his supporters, Wu Kuang and Yuan Shu, and their troops to the palace. Yuan Shao guarded the gates to slaughter any escaping eunuchs. Zhang Rang and Duan Gui tried escaping with Emperor Shao and King of Chenliu across the Yellow River but were caught by Min Gong and committed suicide. Romance of the Three Kingdoms depicts the Ten Eunuchs as a group of greedy and corrupt schemers who deceive the Emperor and blamed as the primary cause for the Yellow Turban's rebellion. Learning of He Jin's plans of raising a massive army to destroy the eunuchs, the ten ask Empress He to issue her brother a personal summons and command to lay down his arms. Not trusting the edict, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao gather five hundred of their best men to wait outside the city with Yuan Shu, and personally went as armed escorts with He Jin. The two are detained and He Jin is isolated and killed by the eunuchs. MembersEdit *Bi Lan (畢嵐) - Mainly known for his artistic and engineering feats, he helped to cast bronze bells and statues for the Southern Palace and constructed water lifting and suction machines to supply the palace aqueducts. He was part of the group which way-laid and killed He Jin in an ambush. *Duan Gui (段圭) - Considered the secondary leader of the faction; he sent a spy to follow He Jin and uncovered his proposal to have the eunuchs executed and participated in the ambush. Tried to escape with Zhang Rang and was either killed by Min Gong or drowned himself in the Yellow River. *Gao Wang (高望) - Noted to have been close to Emperor Shao in his youth, he was killed in the massacre following He Jin's death. *Guo Sheng (郭勝) - Also known as Guo Mai. A close confidant of He Jin, he dissuaded the other eunuchs to accept Jian Shuo's suggestion to scheme against He Jin and eventually revealed the plot to his friend. *Han Kui (韓悝) - Simply noted to have been granted his rank. *Li Song (栗嵩) - Simply noted to have been granted his rank. *Song Dian (宋典) - Highly favored and placed in charge of repairing the Jade Palace, he was of the few Jian Shuo tried to convince to eliminate He Jin. *Sun Zhang (孫璋) - Simply noted to have been granted his rank. *Xia Yun (夏惲) - Greatly favored by Emperor Ling and Empress Dong, he used slander to remove fellow attendant, Lu Qiang, from power to avoid a possible execution. *Zhang Gong (張恭) - Simply noted to have been granted his rank. *Zhang Rang (張讓) *Zhao Zhong (趙忠) - Greatly favored by Emperor Ling, he slandered Lu Qiang along with Xia Yun. He was contacted by Jian Shuo but refused to be complicit in the plot, killed in the massacre by Yuan Shao and He Miao. SupportersEdit *Dong Zhong (董忠) - He sought to diminish He Jin's influence in the court; after hearing this scheme from Empress Dong, Empress He relayed this to her brother. He Jin arrested and stripped Dong Zhong of his ranks; he committed suicide. *Fan Ling (范陵) - Granted a suspiciously high ranking position by the eunuchs after He Jin's death; beheaded by Yuan Shao and Yuan Wei. *He Miao (何苗) - Empress Dowager He and He Jin's half-brother, favored the eunuchs and cautioned He Jin to not oppose them. Took part in avenging his half-brother's death but was killed by Wu Kuang and Dong Min for failing to strongly support He Jin. *Qu Mu (渠穆) - An eunuch and close follower of attendants, he rallied with several other followers and beheaded He Jin. *Xu Xiang (許相) - Granted a suspiciously high ranking position by the eunuchs after He Jin's death; beheaded by Yuan Shao and Yuan Wei. Fictional FollowersEdit *Cao Jie (曹節) - Appears in chapters 1 and 3 in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Historically considered to be previous leader of the attendants before Zhang Rang, he expanded much of the eunuch's influence with the royalty prior to the Yellow Turban Rebellion while cleverly dispatching dissenters in the court; died in 181. In the novel, he is part of the ten, replicates his historical power plays and flees with the young Emperor Shao. *Cheng Kuang (程廣) - Possibly fictional, appears in chapters 1 and 3 in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. One of the ten, he is killed by Yuan Shao and Cao Cao. *Feng Xu (封諝) - Appears in chapters 1 and 2 in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Historically was an attendant favored by Emperor Ling but discovered to have conspired in a coup with the Yellow Turbans; presumably executed in 184. Appears as one of the ten attendants in the novel while serving as Zhang Jiao's liaison; he is discovered and thrown into prison but is found innocent due to lack of proof. *Hou Lan (侯覽) - Appears in chapters 1 and 3 in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Historically was one of the ten who was stripped of his ranks for practicing extreme indulgence and over-excessive use of his powers and committed suicide in 172. Part of the ten in the novel, he flees with the young Emperor Shao. *Jian Shuo (蹇碩) - Also known as Jian Shi, appears in chapters 1 and 2 in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. A military expert and leader of his own eunuch faction within the court, he plotted against He Jin and was executed. A member of the ten in the novel, he is executed by Guo Sheng instead of He Jin. The Ten Eunuchs (also known as the Ten Attendants ) (Traditional Chinese: 十常侍, pinyin: shí chángshì) were a group of eunuchs from the Eunuch Faction of the Han Imperial Court in China. Despite the collective number of "ten," the official history of the Eastern Han Dynasty (i.e., the second half of Han Dynasty), the Book of the Later Han, listed 12 attendants among the rank of the Ten Attendants: Zhang Rang, Zhao Zhong, Xia Yun, Guo Sheng, Sun Zhang, Bi Lan, Li Song, Duan Gui, Gao Wang, Zhang Gong, Han Li, and Song Dian.[[|1]] (The ten regular attendants are listed in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms as[[|2]]: Zhang Rang, Zhao Zhong, Feng Xu, Duan Gui, Cao Jie, Hou Lan, Jian Shuo, Cheng Kuang, Xia Yun, and Guo Sheng; however, the Romance was fictional in nature.) In 189, the Ten Attendants used widowed Empresses and support from Emperors to rise to a position of power. When the Emperor Han Ling Di died, the eunuchs, without a military power base of their own, relied on the support of Empress Dowager He and He Miao. Yuan Shao sent Zhang Jin to advise He Jin, who was Empress He's brother. Zhang Jin argued that the Yellow Gates (palace guard) and Ten Attendants had usurped power and that the Empress Dowager He was corrupt and interloped with them. He urged He Jin to destroy this source of trouble. He Jin agreed and began conspiring with Yuan Shao. Yuan Shao further advised He Jin to summon the frontier general Dong Zhuo and various warlords to the capital to threaten the Empress Dowager, which he did. Sensing an impending threat to their lives, the Ten Attendants and Yellow Gates both came to apologize to He Jin for their "misdeeds." Yuan Shao advised He Jin to take this opportunity to dispose of the eunuchs but He Jin rejected this advice. Subsequently, He Jin appointed Yuan Shao to govern the martial and civil officials of Luoyang and investigate the dealings of the eunuchs in the capital. Yuan Shu was ordered to select two hundred good-natured ‘Rapid As Tigers’ (Hu Ben) officers to replace the arms-bearing ‘Yellow Gates’ eunuch guards in the Forbidden Palace. Finally, in the ninth month of that year He Jin requested the Empress Dowager to execute the eunuchs. The conversation was overheard and relayed to Zhang Rang, the head eunuch following the death of Jian Shuo. Not long after, Duan Gui (the eunuch holding the appointment of Zhong Chang Shi), influential members Zhang Rang and Zhao Zhong, and some other eunuchs used a forged decree from the Empress Dowager to lure He Jin to meet them. They beheaded He Jin in the palace garden. As a result, the palace was thrown into disorder. Dou Wu, who in the past had planned to put them to death, was assassinated himself. This was due to word having leaked out from officers of the five regiments of the Northern Army, the professional standing army normally stationed at the capital. In a bid to force Duan Gui and his group out of their hiding place, Yuan Shu ordered his tiger troops to burn the Green Lock Gate (Qing Suo Men) of the Southern Jia De Palace in the Southern Palace. Instead of surrendering, Duan Gui kidnapped the Han Emperor Shao of Han and King of Chen Liu (Liu Xie) and fled in the direction of Xiao Ping Jin. Yuan Shao beheaded Xu Xiang. At the same time, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu, followers of He Jin, both with significant control of military forces within the capital, stormed the palace and massacred the rest of the eunuchs in the capital. The soldiers were directed to apprehend all eunuchs and to kill them all without regard of age. Benevolent eunuchs who had refused to be contaminated by evil influences were likewise slaughtered. Some two-thousand eunuchs were killed, not counting those people killed by mistake. Yuan Shao sent troops in pursuit of Duan Gui. Seeing that he was about to be captured, Duan Gui ended his life by throwing himself into the river. The remaining of the Ten Attendants initially took the young emperor and Prince Xie hostage, but eventually were forced to commit suicide when the enemy closed in on them. The Emperor was then able to return to the palace. Decades later, The Organization now on is Founded by Gao Shun & Zhang Xiu. Zhang Xiu was a distant nephew of General of Valiant Cavalry Zhang Ji (張濟), who served the tyrannical warlord Dong Zhuo. After Dong Zhuo's death in 192, his former subjects, including Zhang Ji, waged a coup and took over the capital Chang'an. For his part in the coup, Zhang Xiu was also promoted to General who Builds Loyalty and conferred the title of Marquis Xuanwei. After Zhang Ji's death, Zhang Xiu took over his uncle's troops and occupied Wancheng (宛城, present day Nanyang, Henan). He allied himself with Liu Biao, governor of Jingzhou (荆州) and a major warlord of the time. In 197, Cao Cao began his expansion south. When Cao Cao's force came to the Bai River (白河), Zhang Xiu promptly surrendered and was allowed to keep control of Wancheng. Cao Cao then took Zhang Ji's widow as a concubine, which angered Zhang Xiu. Cao Cao heard of Zhang Xiu's displeasure and plotted to kill the latter. However, the plan was leaked and Zhang Xiu waged the surprise attack known as the Battle of Wancheng against Cao Cao. Cao Cao's personal bodyguard Dian Wei died defending the front gate to the camp so that Cao Cao could escape through the back. In the hasty retreat, Cao Cao's eldest son Cao Ang offered his own horse to his father, whose steed was felled by enemy arrows, and was killed by the pursuers. Henceafter, Cao Cao had sent forces to attack Zhang Xiu for years without success. In 200, however, Zhang Xiu took the council of advisor Jia Xu and surrendered to Cao Cao again. Leaving past feuds behind them, Cao Cao took Zhang Xiu's hands and threw a banquet for him. Cao Cao also proposed a marriage between his son Cao Jun (曹均) and Zhang Xiu's daughter. At that time Cao Cao was fighting against the northern warlord Yuan Shao in the decisive Battle of Guandu. Having performed well during the conflict, Zhang Xiu was soon promoted to General who Defeats the Qiang. In 207, Zhang Xiu died en route Liucheng in a northern campaign against the Wuhuan tribe. He was conferred the posthumous title of Marquis Ding (定侯), literally meaning the steadfast marquis. Category:Organizations